Cold Mountain
Miramax Films | Release Date: December 25, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
34
Mixed:
6
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
NewsweekDavid Ansen
As he did in “The English Patient,” Minghella artfully weds movie-movie romanticism with a dark historical vision. The man knows how to cast a spell. Read full review
100
Film ThreatK.J. Doughton
As he did with “The English Patient,” director Minghella performs a miraculous juggling act, balancing his epic, sweeping story with the subtleties of character and detail that make Cold Mountain breathe. Read full review
100
TimeRichard Corliss
A grand and poignant movie epic about what is lost in war and what's worth saving in life. It is also a rare blend of purity and maturity -- the year's most rapturous love story. Read full review
100
Washington PostStephen Hunter
It's funny, it's heartbreaking, it's scary, it's exhilarating. It's got love stuff and lots of laughs and cool gunfights. It's really long and it feels like it's over in 15 minutes. It does something so few movies do these days: It satisfies. Read full review
100
EmpireAngie Errigo
As he did with "The English Patient," Minghella has reshaped the novel’s structure, zeroed in on what matters cinematically and dramatically upped the emotional stakes. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
A somber, often downbeat depiction of human savagery and treachery as well as of human kindness. Writer-director Anthony Minghella has meticulously crafted an intimate epic. Read full review
90
The New YorkerDavid Denby
A much better movie about the South during the Civil War than “Gone with the Wind”--visionary, erotic, and tragic where the older movie is flossy, merely ambitious and self-important. [22 & 29 December 2003, p. 166]
90
Dallas ObserverBill Gallo
In the end, what Minghella has wrought is a nearly perfect drama of love and war (still the great subjects, after all), an epic that's fluent, frightening and beautiful all at once, that lifts the heart and dashes our dreams in about equal measure. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
A rare achievement. Read full review
88
New York PostLou Lumenick
An exquisitely crafted Civil War epic that combines the epic romantic sweep of "Gone With the Wind" with a more intimate voice that speaks eloquently to the war-weary nation of today. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The specter of war haunts Cold Mountain, but you remember it for the heat of its romantic yearning and the mysteries that wrap themselves around you until you're lost in another world. Read full review
88
USA TodayMike Clark
Watching this movie, it seems to be the next level down from great -- maybe too episodic. But it burns in the memory weeks after you see it. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Three quarters of Cold Mountain consist of some of the most masterful and absorbing filmmaking of the year. The final quarter is Hollywood business as usual. Read full review
80
VarietyTodd McCarthy
A grim picaresque odyssey across a beautiful scarred landscape laced together by private romantic longing. Handsomely made and vividly acted. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Kidman and Zellweger are uncommonly good, and I especially liked the timely treatment of war as universally brutalizing: even the outcomes of battles are ignored, as are the motives behind the conflict. Read full review
80
The New York TimesDana Stevens
The result is a mountain of honest, nourishing corn, a lavish evocation of simplicity that, for all its showy sophistication, has an appealing emotional directness. For all its sweep and scope and movie-star magic, Cold Mountain is studded with fine small moments and deft supporting performances. Read full review
80
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Though Law and Kidman spend much of the movie apart, Minghella and ace editor Walter Murch arrange their interweaving subplots like a running dialogue between two lovers, each compelled to survive on the thin hope that they'll be reunited. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
It's certainly a successful adaptation, features numerous memorable performances (mostly by the supporting players), and is worth a post-holiday expenditure of time and money. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
By the end of the film, you admire the artistry and the care, you know that the actors worked hard and are grateful for their labors, but you wonder who in God's name thought this was a promising scenario for a movie. It's not a story, it's an idea. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
This is what makes the distinctly unromantic Cold Mountain' such a breath of fresh air. Its battles are hideous bloodbaths. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
All the signs pointed to a major movie achievement...And it does -- sometimes, and dazzlingly so. But the dazzle doesn't add up to the sustained act of brilliance I'd been expecting. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Cold Mountain is the equivalent of comfort food: old-fashioned, earthy (lots of root vegetables), satisfying. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Minghella does a good job of dashing any lingering image you might have of the Civil War as a conflict fought along neat geometric battle lines with the nobility of Appomattox. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
Cold Mountain has some marvelous, intimate moments and a real feeling, at times, for the loss that war engenders, but it also has more than its share of hokum--which would be more entertaining if the hokum were juicier. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Zellweger looks like a big movie star roughing it à la Paris Hilton, and as if this weren't distracting enough, the hills are alive with big acting names from both sides of the Atlantic who pop up as help or hindrance to Inman's pilgrim's progress while straining, with variable success, for credible Southern twangs. Read full review
70
SlateDavid Edelstein
Good, sometimes thrilling, but it's less a war epic than an evocative romantic melodrama with a patchy first hour. Read full review
70
Washington PostDesson Thomson
It's enough of a spectacle to enjoy. It's too bad the stars are little more than serviceable and give the movie title an irony it could certainly do without. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Looks splendid and commands respect, but leaves you wondering what essential something you missed. It's a worthy film at war with itself.
70
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
This picture is an odd misadventure: a gigantic enterprise that, despite some quite exceptional filming, is thwarted by its two leading actors. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Minghella's adaptation of the 1997 Charles Frazier novel is emotionally detached and almost too studiously carpentered: a willed exercise in mythmaking. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
A handsome work of impressive sweep dotted with fine performances. It offers a few fine moments of wit, fear and emotional intimacy. But it rarely pulses with vital life. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMark Caro
This Civil War epic romance is exquisitely shot, lovingly designed and populated with talented name actors. In terms of pedigree and sheer, lush filmmaking, the movie has class written all over it. And that's part of the problem. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Minghella has certainly mounted a gorgeous movie and the battle scenes are brutally spectacular. But overall, "Cold Mountain" is like a fine piece of hand-crafted leather, where the stitching shows its quality. That looks good on a handbag, not so good on the big screen. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
These two fine, talented actors share a fatal lack of chemistry together, and it's a flaw this grandly ambitious movie cannot overcome. Read full review
60
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
A big fat war movie and a tender love story. Indeed, Cold Mountain is something of an uneasy struggle between the two modes. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
There are not one, but two wars raging inside this adaptation: one between the North and the South, and another, more calamitous war between art and middlebrow entertainment. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Allows the supporting cast to steal the movie. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Leaving the book aside, how well does the picture fare? Middingly, and in fits and starts. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Cold Mountain is a romance, refreshingly free from the taint of any political realities other than the "War is hell" variety. It's also completely juiceless. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The fine cast is also misused -- especially Kidman, who looks as unruffled at the end of her torments as before they began, and Zellweger, who does a job of overacting that might have gotten rejected by "The Beverly Hillbillies." Read full review
38
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
The result is a flabby, episodic phantasmagoria. Read full review
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